Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Obama's willful blindness on the matter of North Korea

US president Barack Obama's [BHO]patience is wearing thin when it comes to the DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea aka North Korea]. Famous for his 'sang froid', BHO is becoming more noticeably annoyed at China's unwillingness to 'sign on' to condemnation of the DPRK in the sinking of the ROK [Republic of Korea aka South Korea] corvette 'Cheonan' in March 2010.His calmness has given way to calling China 'willfully blind' to North Korea's hand in the sunken 'Cheonan'. Beijing, as GuamDiary has observed, had told the US that it would not go along with more stringent and restrictive sanctions against the DPRK and to make BHO more irritable has refrained from making a public judgment on the 'Cheonan'.The US has as much purchase on the issue as its South Korean ally. GuamDiary has longly commented on the questions which the South Korean study of the corvette's sinking. In spite of concurring opinions of foreign experts from the US, Australia, and Sweden, only a few selective pages of the 150 page report have been allowed public exposure. Apparently as GuamDiary make the observation that South Korea's Lee Myung bek's government fears that the issuance of the complete report would compromise its sources and finding.The DPRK has denied responsibility; it has issued its own dossier; and asked to send a delegation of its own experts to Seoul to examine the evidence. Request denied!BHO's open expression of anger towards China is not only frustrating to the US campaign to isolate and stigmatise Pyongyang, but also to push it to make a mistake by taking a rash action, a military one would suit Washington and Seoul fine. So far, aside from sabre rattling, the DPRK has slipped through the US' and ROK's obvious trap. Beijing sees through America's gambit, too. GuamDiary has noted the findings of a blue ribbon panel's report on US policy towards Korea under the aegis of the CFR [Council on Foreign Relations]. It calls for rolling back North Korea. In standard English, it portends clearing the diplomatic chess board for war.BHO's growing anger at China has the odour of a pathologic crusade against the DPRK is put a further inching towards an exchange of gunfire.